7.4: Dragonfire

In which we consider the assertion that the semiotic thickness of a performed text varies according to the redundancy of auxiliary performance codes.

Broadcast: November-December 1987

Watched: January-February 2021

Dragonfire, Part One

“And I was so looking forward to meeting a dragon...” McCoy is so great when he’s being melancholy.

Anyway, obviously this is great too. The genuinely unnerving opening. The fact the story has “fire” in the name but is set in a freezer. The weirdly seductive and vampiric Kane with his mark (ooh, ooh, I just got that!). Patricia Quinn. The ice sculpture. The little girl doing the Greek chorus bit.

“You mean they’d.” “Kill you.” “Sabalom Glitz.” Love Mel immediately standing up for him, the trusting idiot. And the idea he sold his crew. AND the way the lie he tells the regulars is the plot of Mysterious Planet again.

Aldred isn’t up to it, but the character is fresh and fun enough it doesn’t really matter. Love the bit where it looks like she’s going to join Kane, and no, she’s just planning how to f*ck him up.

The cliffhanger is rubbish [this is the bit where the Doctor literally dangles himself over a cliff for no reason; sort of fixed in The Name of the Doctor, 26 years later] and I can’t work out why anyone thought it worked but, hey, the previous 23 minutes are great so I don’t care. 

Is the dog that almost bites the Doctor Fifi? [From next year’s The Happiness Patrol.]

Did I dream this or was there an NA that said Ace banged Glitz? Eww. 

Dragonfire, Part Two

“I sympathise with your disappointment but I’m about to plummet to my death!” 

Also, “Why is everyone around here so preoccupied with metaphysics?” This is a really funny story - like modern Who, it just assumes it’s a form of comedy.

Again, loads to love. The existential guard, quoting from fan crit. The tragic subtext to Kane. The bit where he murders the artist to remind us he’s the villain, or tells Belazs he’s letting her go before killing her. Ace being excited to meet a dragon, even as it attacks, feels a good character note. Glitz being such a shit that the zombies still remember him. The melting statue. Kane addressing the audience at the cliffhanger! It’s lovely.

That said, I’m not so sure “Pay back the debt” is the right message for the Doctor. Also, three mins in there’s a lengthy effects shot of the planet for no reason. Episode running short?

[I have literally, in 2023, just got that “Iceworld” is a joke about “Iceland.”]

There’s an odd moment where Ace and Mel are disappointed not to kill someone. That feels weird. Also the scenes when Ace basically announces who she is are unsubtle, and Aldred can’t sell them. But it’s better to make the effort to create a character rather than end up with, y’know, Mel.

Dragonfire, Part Three

“They always mark north and south on these things, not backwards and forwards.”

Oh my god. The start chart where everything is slightly out of position - MOFFAT STOLE THIS IN HEAVEN SENT.

There are some problems with the plot. They kill Kane’s two henchmen in part two, and then have to exactly replace them with two functionally identical characters, three mins into this. The ANT hunt doesn’t work, and I’m not sure clearing the upper levels makes any sense - why does Kane want to kill everyone exactly? Why isn’t the Doctor’s story about trying to save them? Since Stella’s mother survives, it’s not even clear the production team know how big the massacre is meant to be.

But there are so many good bits I’m not sure it matters. The dragon rescuing the little girl. Her mother scaring the shit out of Glitz. The girl putting her Teddy to bed in the ice coffin. Mel refusing to hand over the dragonfire and Ace shouting, “Melanie!” “It’s a spacecraft! The whole colony’s a spacecraft!” Kane being defeated by time and fate and killing himself. The last scene. God it’s lovely.

Although the bit where he melts is horrible. 

The look Ace gives Mel when she suggests “I, Spy” is also a nice character note. The way they’re all agreed they need explosives and no one says “this is ridiculous” is a bit odd.

Hmmm. That long effects shot again but in reverse. Were the scripts just… really short?

Mel’s departure makes no sense whatsoever that I can see - why on earth would she go off with Glitz? Why does she want to leave if not to go home? No wonder the NAs [‘90s books] retconned it. But it’s a lovely sad moment for McCoy.

Edward Peel was 43 when they made this. People aged differently then.